Fact Check: Did the MI School Shooter Pose as a Cop to Coax Students Out of Their Hiding Places?
A fear-drenched video of students fleeing an Oxford High School classroom is a chilling indication of the panic students endured during a Michigan school shooting Monday that left four students dead.
However, according to Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard, a man heard in the video speaking to students was not the 15-year-old accused of murder in the incident.
The video, first posted to TikTok, had been widely shared as showing how the shooter sought to impersonate an officer and lure victims from a classroom.
In the video, the person’s voice can be heard saying, “Sheriff’s office. It’s safe to come out.”
“We’re not willing to take that risk right now,” one student replied.
“OK, well come to the door and look at my badge, bro,” the unseen voice then said.
“He said bro,” one boy said. “Red flag.”
Students then rushed to a window, opened it and fled outside.
Bouchard said the students’ fear was very real, but the connotation put on the video is not.
“I want to clear up some of the incorrect information that keeps circulating,” Bouchard said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference, according to the Detroit Free Press. “Social media keeps ginning up a great deal of false information.”
“We have now been able to determine that was not the suspect. More than likely, it was one of our plain-clothes detectives, and he may have been talking, ‘bro’ in a conversational manner to try to bring them down from the crisis,” he explained.
“The suspect, we have now confirmed by analyzing all of the video from the time it began to the time we took him into custody never knocked on a door.”
Bouchard said suspect Ethan Crumbley appeared to have either brought the gun in a backpack or tucked in his pants, according to the Detroit Free Press.
He said Crumbley came out of a school bathroom armed, walked through hallways and never entered a classroom.
“The evidence I’ve seen shows he was very clearly trying to kill people,” Bouchard said.
Video shows the suspect “came out with the intent to kill people. He was shooting people at close range often times toward the head or chest,” Bouchard explained.
Police recovered 30 spent shell casings and that 18 rounds were found on the suspect.
In the incident in which eight people were wounded, Crumbley faces one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of first-degree murder, seven counts of assault with intent to murder and 12 counts of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, according to Fox News.
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